Sonnets From A Succubus


                                 I

Hello!  Your Princess has arrived from Hell,
complete in ashes, brimstone smoke for eyes,
as ordered.  Tall and tanned, so dark I fell
from Heaven's pale and righteous ranks, with lies
a-plenty-- weighted lyrics used to probe
your thresholds; virtues undermined by sighs
the likes of which would try a saint.  As Job
was called to demonstrate his faith with cries
of grief, to show the home-team's stark resolve
through loss-- so He has chosen you to try
and break.  Decide your heart: will it revolve
around the Savior?  Who is who?  And why?
Enough of introductions-- let's begin;
I won't be paid a thing till you have sinned.


                                 II

I won't be paid a thing till you have sinned.
My wage is death, and I am overdue
a little rest... in fact, a bit chagrined
I am for this eternal task.  Can you
imagine how a succubus might feel,
forever locked in tempting souls to love,
and (here's the killer), always loving still
each saint and sinner, when they rise above
or fall below, each voice still ringing plain
forevermore-- oh, I do miss them so!
But I will never visit their domain,
and such exquisite pain you'll never know
or feel within your loose, temporal flesh,
or fathom in that weak, synaptic mesh.


                                 III

Or, fathom in that weak, synaptic mesh
this paradox your maker has disguised
within this test of your devotion:  Fresh
with pain, desire is never cauterized
for long by faith, and chronic pains adjust,
permute to higher Love, and teachings tell
us God is made of such-- but yet you must
resist the cry of purer cravings, quell
the passions incongruent to commands,
and walk the straight and narrow-- He expects
no less.  At once, God denies and demands,
and blesses, tortures, soothes and vivisects.

...or might He be inducing Love, perhaps,
and guiding you, instead of setting traps?